Windsor Locks Police News

July 22, 1997

* A man who threatened suicide, then held police in a standoff for seven hours on Wicklow Street Friday evening, is to be charged with threatening, disorderly conduct and two counts of resisting arrest, police said Monday.

Rachele said Maheu was taken to Hartford Hospital for observation after he was subdued and arrested about 11 p.m. Friday, and since has been transferred to a mental hospital.

Police from Windsor Locks and the North Central Emergency Response Team used a ``flash grenade'' to startle Maheu and tackle him after he walked from his darkened house into his front yard while talking on a portable phone. Rachele said the grenade is a ``distraction device'' carried by police special teams for use in such situations.

Police had been alerted by Maheu's mother that he was despondent ``over some family problems,'' Rachele said. He said Maheu spoke briefly with Rachele by phone at about 4 p.m., but thereafter refused to negotiate with officers.

Rachele said after Maheu was subdued, police found that he was not carrying the handgun he had threatened to use on himself. Early Saturday, a search warrant was obtained for Maheu's house, and a .38-caliber revolver and a box containing 50 cartridges were seized, police said.